Life Skills for Children

Life Skills for children design and implement personal safety and life skills development courses for young people.
We are always keen to generate support for our goal to provide young people with key skills to improve their chances of not becoming a victim of bullying.

Young People are our Future (YPAOF) is a registered charity
and was set in at the end of 2012. At
the heart of the charity lies the “Life Skills for Children” course which
empowers young people with a set of core skills to increase their personal
safety, confidence, communication skills and ultimately assists them in
assessing and avoiding becoming a victim to BULLYING.

Due to the success of the charity in its first year of
operation YPAOF has just moved into a BIGGER and better location situated at
the CMK Railway station.

“This new
facility will enable us to run even more events and provide young people and
their families with a professional service” said the charities founder,
Gary Payne.

Some of these new services include activities in
self-defence, fitness, yoga, drama.

To keep the celebrations going, YPAOF have just reached
their first milestone with 10,783 young people having experienced the Life
Skills education.

Gary said “Despite some
serious challenges and a budget of a shoe string we have hit a major milestone
so thank you to every one of the small but dedicated team who have helped”.

With the Life Skills for Children parenting book being
published on Amazon and the funds supporting local young people through the
project, it is hoped that the next target of 15,000 will be achieved towards
the tail end of this year.

Details of the YPAOF charity and how you can access FREE
events for your children visit. www.ypaof.org

Tuesday, 25 March 2014

BOBBY IS A HERO

When I woke up this morning, I never thought I would be
inspired so much by just one individual.

Several days ago I was roped into running a Life Skills event for some young
people attached to a group of military personnel. We have all been there before
when you start to regret something you previous agreed to and this was my
moment.

I don’t know if it was the thought of travelling in the rain
or just complete laziness but I was really not too enthusiastic about running
today’s event.

When I arrived at the venue there were many more kids than I
was previous told about and this kick started my enthusiasm as it is difficult
to run a session on positive mental attitude if your body language is nothing
but negative.

I started the session and my attention was soon drawn
towards an old friend who had beside him a man with a noticeable injury.

After initially touching base with my old buddy, he
introduced me to Robert (Bobby). Bobby was caught in an IED attack in the early
days of Afghanistan and sustained some serious injuries including the loss of
his left leg, the loss of the bottom part of his left arm and some serious
damage to the left side of his head and face.

I have a few friends who unfortunately have sustained
injuries over the years, but Bobby looked like he had been through a truly horrendous
time.

At the end of my event, when the children had been shuffled
off to play elsewhere, my mate who invited me to attend whispered in my ear. “This is why I invited you today – enjoy”

To my surprise Bobby was invited to the event to speak to
the audience of largely ex-military personnel. He stood up and proceeding to
explain to everyone present how he got injured and why he felt the need to attempt
to take his own life on 5 separate occasions with success.

The speech was touching and yet he added a huge amount of
humour to it to soften the sound of his voice as it entered into the ears of
the audience.

He explained that through the nightmare he was living every
attempt to end his life failed because he believed he wasn’t his time. “Despite some detailed planning things would
go wrong” he said.

Several months ago he was looking in the mirror and
comparing his old body to his new, when he realised that against his wishes he
was here to stay. He made an assertive decision to stop wasting time being
negative and start seeing the positive in what had happened to him.

He gave us some funny examples of positive including being
able to get to the bar quickly for a drink as those around him would feel sorry
for him, and how when watching his local football team the club treated him
like a VIP.

Bobby then started to weep as he told us of his regret at
putting his girlfriend through so much pain. He added at the end that she was
the reason for him changing his attitude and working with young people.

My ears pricked up as he continued by telling us how he has
spent the last few months working with young people who are experiencing a
difficult time. He said he runs a POSITIVE MENTAL ATTITUDE course for young
people based on his experiences.

Every so often we all meet an individual that makes a
profound impact on us. Bobby is a real hero who has now dedicated his time to
making those around him realise we can all overcome the biggest hurdles if we
have the right mind set.

Following my parents example

When working with young adults who are unemployed and experiencing various personal difficulties it is often the case that their story will replicate one or both of their parents when they were at the same age.

It is especially good to see a young person who has every right to follow a negative and very lonely path because of what they have seen and yet find the courage and strength to break free and develop an exciting path for themselves.

On one of our prepare for employment seminars I ran to a group of eighteen young adults, I was introduced to two brothers who both experienced the same childhood, both were inspired by the same pattern of parents who were content with living of the state and who both struggled to identify what they wanted to achieve in life as adults.

The difference between the brothers was clear from the outset as the younger brother displayed through his body language and enthusiasm an ability to want to break free whilst his older brother was clearly settling for a similar life to that of his parents.

Within the seminar we teach attendees to explore their imagination and develop a life plan full of wonderful achievements. We get them to remove the hurdle of money and explore the opportunity for them to travel and live a life full of luxury.

Once this is completed we get the attendees to roughly calculate the cost attached to such a lifestyle so they can then set realistic employment goals in an attempt to achieve this lifestyle.

The brothers like the rest of the group started this exercise very slowly, struggling to explore their imagination to identify what they want, but as the seminar progressed the younger brother kick started his brain and the ideas were falling out one by one.

As often happens in the part of the seminar, some of the group start questioning why they have been asked to dream when the reality is most of what they want will never be achieved.

Just at the point when I was about to roll out my pre-framed answer, the younger brother interjected and said. "This makes sense, because if we now what we want, we have somewhere to start in order to get it"

The seminar progressed to it's conclusion with an exercise in which the group are asked to develop a work plan detailing the steps they need to take in order to find employment and start the process of earning an income to satisfy their dream of achieving their life's goals.

I remember saying to the brothers that the next few months would define whether they took anything positive from the seminar.

On Monday of this week I attended a youth employment group to mentor a few young people when I bumped into the older of the two brothers. Unfortunately he was still unemployed and was displaying the same lack of enthusiasm he displayed at our first meeting.

I asked him about his brother and he informed me that he had not only got an apprenticeship working for a popular airline but he had managed to get his father a job at the same location.

He continued by saying his brother was in the process of moving into his own flat and was learning to drive.

Impressed by what I had heard, I decided to look up the details of his life plan from the seminar he attended and the whole of his plan was dedicated to travelling.

He had planned to do the following 5 things

1: Find an apprenticeship where he can travel

2: Learn to drive so he can travel

3: Move into his own flat

4: Travel to Spain, USA, Africa

5: Spend the summer working in a hot country

I rang him up to congratulate him on his recent success and he informed me that apart of his apprenticeship involved working in Spain for the summer of 2014.

In little over four months, he had managed to initiate all of the five things he had listed down on his life plan. I asked him about his father and unfortunately he felt the need to give up his job.

The brothers are a clear indication that inspiring young people with the ability to create a realistic dream is and will always be the way to achieving great things.

They also teach us that no two people are the same and despite having the same experiences as children, having the ability to plan can and is often the difference between those who want to be successful and those who don't.

He decided to dedicate his time to developing a training programme which could educate his children in some simple and practical non-physical skills that would prepare them for not only their school life but would prepare them for every aspect of their future.

Gary's clients include:

Network of Local Schools including Special Needs and Disability Schools

NEST National Education Systems for Training

MAIA A Professional Network of Children’s Development Programmes

HM Prison Service

British Army – Royal Marines Commandos – Special Air Service – 264 SF Signals

Centrex Police National Police Training

Metropolitan Police Diplomatic Protection Service

Metropolitan Police Special Operations SO19 - SO12 - CO11

Ministry Of Defence Police

Women's Aid

International Police Instructors from Belgium, Italy, Germany, Canada and Australia